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Jere Gettle

Anyone planning to or have already entered anything in your county fair?

Our fair started yesterday (sort of...today was registration of exhibits, so that's what I count as the start...the "Queen's Pageant" that was yesterday doesn't count).

I've got 15 canned goods and a whole bunch of veggies/herbs/etc entered. I'll post how well I did next Sunday when it is over. Last few times I entered I had quite a few ribbons, including 2 Best of Shows (one of which was my apple pie filling).

Ours just ended yesterday. we used to take sheep, horses, second string poultry and rabbits as well as a few potatoes, onions, garlic or whatever. Just too busy this year and 8 days is a long time for some critters, causes stress. I never even made it the fair at all this year. There are several more coming up in adjoining counties so might get to 1 of them.

I have never shown produce at a fair but have had equine 4-H projects back in the day (If I think how far back I feel old). My county fair has a pitiful produce show and in order to enter I would have to 1) take a day off from the farmers market 2 and 2) grow a whole 'nother bunch of varieties as they have scant few AOV classes and nothing for things like garlic, leeks, heirloom maters, etc..

Now if I could enter the fair to the county north of me I would-they have classes for everything we grow, lots of heirloom and AOV classes and about the best fair produce show in the USA (it is the greatest county fair in the USA according to many authorities) thanks to Francis Beyers, a gardener in his 90's who is still growing and showing his produce. Back in the 1950's he got interested in showing produce and found both the Darke County fair and the Ohio State fair lacking so he took the initiative to improve both fairs as far as produce is concerned. He is the only vegetable producer in the Ohio Agriculture Hall of fame. I got to know him years ago because we set up next to each other at a farmers market in Indiana, where he would sell these beautiful veggies for next to nothing and finally I had to ask why he was giving such hard work away and he said because he usually made $20K showing produce and what he sold was the extras left over from after the show season.

In 1971, my wife and I were living a few miles south of Capon Bridge, WV, in an old farm house right on the Cacapon River, with a nice fenced in garden. Deer were our only neighbors for about a mile to the south and three miles to the north. No neighbors for two hollows over to the west and the closest neighbor east across the river was maybe a mile or more.

Outhouse, water pump in the yard, three wood stoves one in each downstairs room and a wood cook stove. We were basically locavore hippies back then. Very basic.

I made several veggie entries in the Hampshire County Fair that year. All organic stuff. Didn't get one ribbon. Hahahaha. My wife entered some canned goods in blue glass jars with those old alloy lids. She got a blue ribbon for her bread and butter pickles. Her grandmother's recipe. They were beautiful and delicious. Caused a little bit of a stir among the older locals ... what with "those hippies livin' down at that Nixon place" (ironically, the place we lived was homesteaded at the turn of the century by a family named Nixon who had moved off to Ohio during the Depression). Those truly were the days.

Frame those ribbons, MJC.

GGG

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